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“Maybe so.” Mallory smiled, but his comments confused her. He was sincere, not flippant or sarcastic. Sincerity was not an attitude she expected from a man who had been born obnoxious and then suffered numerous relapses. “Dr. McKinley tells me you’re ready to go home.”
“Yep. As nice as it is here, I can’t afford to run up a bill for room and board.” He gestured to the bedside chair. “Would you care to have a seat?”
Mallory sat, marveling at his courtesy. The last time she’d seen him, he had suggested she buy a six-pack and watch a wrestling match. “Has anyone talked to you about your bill?”
“Yes, ma’am. A nice lady came in. Called herself a social worker. How can she be social and work at the same time?” He shrugged. “Said they’d fix me up with a payment plan so I can settle my debt when I get back on my feet.”
“Good. How are you planning to get home? Have you called someone to come for you?” Mallory tried not to stare, but was intrigued by the way the setting sun shone through the window and backlit his head with a golden corona.
“No. There’s no one I care to call. Since I’m afoot, I guess I’ll walk it.”
“On those?” She eyed the crutches propped against the bed. “Excuse me for saying so, but you haven’t exactly mastered their use.”
He grimaced apologetically. “I’m about as gimpy as a one-legged chicken. Dr. Mac said I should keep off my feet for a few days, but I figure I can make it home.”
“Slapdown’s twenty miles from here,” she reminded him.
“It is? Well, of course it is. Maybe hoofing isn’t the way to go.”
“I can give you a ride home.”
His face brightened, his warm brown eyes glowing with appreciation. “I’d be much obliged.”
She echoed Mac’s words. “What are neighbors for?”
“We’re neighbors?”
Was this an example of the confusion the nurses had noted? “You live next door to the clinic where I work and close to where I live.”
He beamed. “Well, good. That’s about the best news I’ve heard all day.”
News? Had he forgotten where he lived? “Really, Joe, how are you feeling?”
“Right as rain and happy as a pup with two tails.”
Brain damage was definitely a possibility. Simply being charged with negative electrons wouldn’t cause him to suddenly start talking like a character from Mayberry. “Are you sure?”
“Matter of fact, I haven’t felt this alive in…well, let’s just say in a long, long time.”
A couple of hours later Joe checked himself out of the hospital, and they drove home. Dodging Mallory’s questions was like walking through a cow pasture: you had to watch where you stepped. He couldn’t tell if she was suspicious about him or just abnormally curious. The only good thing about living through lightning was having an excuse to act as worn-out as a fat uncle’s welcome.
He pretended to wake up when Mallory parked her little truck in front of a rickety metal house on wheels. From the beat-up look of it, the trailer as Mallory called it, had been plunked down in the middle of the junk-strewn lot by a cyclone. Several skinny dogs crawled out of the shade to bark a yapping welcome. Joe’s heart sank deeper as he looked around. “I live here?”
Mallory grimaced. “Home sweet home. I fed the demon horde while you were in the hospital.”
“The what?”
“The dogs.”
“Oh. Thank you.” He looked around in disgust. What kind of self-respecting man lived in a rat-hole like this? The place would embarrass a blind fur trapper. “Are all these dogs mine?”
“Apparently so. Five at last count.”
“That’s a heap of dog.”
“And not a keeper in the bunch.”
Joe reached for the door handle, and grinned when he knew exactly how the contraption worked. That happened more often than not. As Celestian had predicted, his new body carried the old Joe’s physical memories. Deeply ingrained in his sinews, they enabled him to adapt to his new life without going walleyed over twenty-first century advancements. That’s why watching television and walking through automatic doors and racing along the road at more than fifty miles per hour didn’t feel nearly as strange as it should have.
“Thanks for the ride,” he told Mallory. “If you’ll fetch my crutches from the back, I’ll get on in the…house.”
“Shall I help you out of the truck?”
“I can manage.” She handed him the crutches, and he hopped onto the uneven ground. Pain zinged up his legs from the burns on the soles of his bandaged feet. He hoped the inside of his new home wasn’t as junked up as the outside. If it were, he’d have a heck of a time getting around.
Mallory walked ahead and opened the door. He limped across the yard, and the hounds slunk up to sniff him. A couple growled and backed off, while the rest tucked their tails and whimpered back into their hiding places. None of them seemed exactly enraptured to see him.
“So much for man’s best friends, huh?” Mallory held the door open. “Leave for a couple of days, and they forget who you are.”
Joe struggled onto the cinder block that served as a step, and Mallory took his arm to help him inside. He ducked under the low threshold, and a powerful stink slapped him in the face. “Whoa! It smells worse in here than hell on housecleaning day.”
Mallory stepped inside and poked around the tiny kitchen until she discovered the source of the stench. “Sheesh, Mitchum! You left a pound of hamburger in the fridge, and the electricity’s been off all weekend.”
With her hand clamped over her nose, she couldn’t have looked more disgusted if she’d uncovered a decaying corpse. “You can’t stay. The place is filthy. There’s no telling what kind of infection you’d contract just walking around in here.”
“I reckon I can clean things up.”
“You and what hazmat team? There’s no power, no running water and it’s hotter than a brick oven. No one should live like this.”
Being from west Texas, he didn’t mind the heat, though a smart man could learn to like the cool air they had at the hospital. He wouldn’t miss electricity and running water. Such luxuries had been beyond his ranger’s salary. That toe-curling smell, though, would take some getting used to.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here.” Mallory found a couple of brown paper bags. Into one, she stuffed clothes from the tiny wardrobe and built-in drawers. She dropped the rotting package of meat into the other and carried it outside, flinging it into a charred metal barrel. “I hope those mutts don’t turn over the trash can.”
“Might improve the looks of the place.” Joe leaned on the crutches and limped down the step. “Where are we going?”
Mallory tossed his makeshift suitcase in the back of the truck and helped him into the passenger seat. “I have an extra room. You can stay with me until the bandages come off, and you can walk without crutches.”
Her offer confused him. “I don’t know about that. How will it look for a young maiden lady to take a man into her home?”
She laughed. “A young what?”
“I couldn’t forgive myself if I besmirched your reputation in any way.”
She glanced sideways at him as she started the engine and shifted gears. “You’re kidding, right?”
The blast of cool air from the dashboard was a modern convenience he would hate to give up. “I know how people talk.”
“Don’t worry about my reputation, Mitchum, I can take care of myself. And don’t get any smart ideas. I’m offering you a place to stay. Nothing else.”
“Well, if you’re sure it won’t get you into hot water.”
“Let me ask you something.” She threw the gearshift back into Park and turned to face him. “Since when have you been so concerned about what people think?” Her golden eyes flashed, and her full lips clamped together in a don’t-lie-to-me line.
“A good reputation is the most valuable thing a person can own,” he replied.
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’d rather lose my right arm than my honor.”
Her sudden hoot of laughter wounded him in a way he hadn’t known possible. He fell silent in the face of her ridicule. The old Joe must have lived by a different code. That’s why Mallory held him in such low esteem. An obstacle like that would complicate his mission, but sharing living quarters with her would provide him with plenty of opportunities to win her over.
He watched Mallory angle the gearshift into Reverse and back out of the rutted drive. He couldn’t see Molly in her face, but at times, he could hear his old love in her words, sense her in Mallory’s efficient movements. Not now of course. At the moment, she was all Mallory. A smart woman who wouldn’t admit there were things she couldn’t understand. A familiar stranger who would never know how important she was to him unless he opened her eyes.
He wouldn’t lose this chance. He was meant to be here and felt at peace in Mallory’s company. He felt like a man who’d finally made it home after a long, heart-sore journey.
When he and Celestian hadn’t been biting each other’s heads off, they’d had deep discussions. A hundred years added up to a lot of gab. One topic they’d thrashed out was the purpose of corporeal life.
The Spirit-Maker divided every created spirit and sent it on an earthly mission to find its other half. The Plan provided each questing spirit with the knowledge needed to complete its search. However, due to a snag in the system, once a spirit assumed human form, it seemed to forget its mission. Human beings expended enormous time and energy creating philosophies and religions to explain their existence. But what they didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that when they made the right connection, everything else fell into place.
A whole spirit could change the world, do unlimited good, serve the Spirit-Maker and mankind. A half spirit could only quest. And while that spirit might accomplish worthwhile objectives on earth, it would never feel complete as it yearned forever for its missing half.
Without even knowing what it hungered for.
Hope was eternal, and if a half-life spirit alighted in Reception, it was carefully rerouted to begin the cycle again. Considering how important the quest was in the scheme of things, it was an ironically sad fact of cosmic life that only a few managed to find the spirit that would make them whole. All were given the opportunity, but most were too blind to use it.
The Ranger considered himself lucky. He’d spent several lifetimes with his healer half and then a century in time-out, learning the way. Fate had handed him an undeserved gift when it allowed him to return as Mallory’s neighbor. He was not going to make the most human of all mistakes and forfeit his last chance.
Because of the old Joe’s poor housekeeping habits, he could spend the next few days under the same roof as his destiny. Things were looking up. Coincidences that weren’t coincidences had come to his aid.
Mallory steered the truck into the paved parking lot, drove past the clinic, and up a little hill. She parked in front of a white house with green shutters, surrounded with neat flowerbeds and trimmed grass. Potted plants swung from the porch posts. This was more like it. This was a home, not a hovel. Good things could happen here.
He sighed gratefully.
Thank you, Joe Mitchum, wherever you are, for being such a lazy ne’er-do-well.
Chapter Three
Mallory settled Joe in an extra bedroom at the opposite end of the house. He would have his own bathroom, so their paths would not have to cross any more than necessary. So far, he hadn’t been nearly as annoying as she knew he could be, but once the shock wore off, he might revert to old habits.
Openly admiring the accommodations, he limped around the blue-and-white bedroom on his crutches, pulling out drawers and inspecting the closet. He bounced the mattress experimentally with one hand and grinned like he’d never seen a pillow-top queen before. Some people were easily impressed.
She left him to put away the things she’d grabbed at the trailer while she started dinner. She hadn’t been her practical, logical self since that errant bolt of lightning had thrust Joe Mitchum into her life. Doing something mundane would restore her sense of normalcy. Making nice with a guy whom she’d always considered an odious nuisance was unnerving. Factor in the twitchiness that overcame her when he was near, and it was no wonder she was feeling weird.
Helping Joe was a way of paying back some of the generosity she’d received over the years. A distressing mission of mercy, but somebody had to do it. Hoping he wouldn’t give her a reason to regret opening her home to him, she heated water for spaghetti and dumped a bag of prepackaged salad into a bowl. Turning to the stove with pasta for the boiling pot, she jumped and nearly dropped it. Joe was watching her intently from the doorway.
“Jeepers! Don’t sneak up on me like that! Do you want to give me cardiac arrest?” After years of living alone, having another person around would take some getting used to. Having Joe Mitchum around…well, there were some things she would never get used to.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He leaned on his crutches and took in the gleaming appliances, glass-fronted cupboards and cheerful sunflower wallpaper. “Nice place.”
“Thanks, but it’s not mine.” She melted butter for garlic bread. “Remember? Housing is a perk I get for working at the clinic.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
He’d forgotten a lot of things. He hadn’t seemed to recognize much when they’d driven through town. She’d left him in the truck while she ran into the grocery store to pick up a few things. When she came out, Glorieta Tadlock was leaning in the passenger window attempting to engage him in conversation. In the loosest sense of the word. Dressed in a sequined halter-top that showed off the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and short shorts that showed off everything else, the blowzy blonde treated him like a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. To Joe’s credit, he’d seemed perplexed and embarrassed by the attention.
If she hadn’t known better, Mallory would have sworn he’d never laid eyes on the belly-ringed nail technician in his life. Which was pretty strange considering the two had once been an item. Since neither knew what the word platonic meant, he’d probably laid a lot more than his eyes on her.
“So you can live here as long as you’re the doc?” he asked.
“Or until I get a place of my own.” Before she did that, she planned to save enough to put a down payment on a house for her parents. Seeing their only child through medical school had cracked their working-class nest egg. Buying them a home wouldn’t come close to repaying all the sacrifices they’d made for her, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about the future.
Happily married for nearly forty years, Al and Lois Peterson had set a good example of wedded bliss for their daughter. Unfortunately, Mallory had never had time to be much of a romantic and didn’t believe she would ever find the kind of love her parents shared. Her doubts weren’t based on logic, they just were. She’d never suffered a betrayal. No faithless lover had broken her heart. She simply didn’t think of herself and true love in the same context.
She assumed it was because she’d always been too focused on her goals to fall in love. College and medical school and interning had made it impossible to fit a personal life into her schedule. She had more time now, but neither the inclination nor opportunity. A drought of available men had just about dried up the gene pool in Slapdown.
At the age of twenty-nine, solitude had become a habit.
“I hope your room is all right.” She set the salad bowl on the table. The careful way he watched her increased her jitters. It was one thing not to find him totally repugnant, but finding him intriguing and attractive was like slipping into an alternate universe.
“It’s more than all right. This is just about the swankiest place I’ve ever stayed.”
Mallory smiled. He thought a doublewide on a wind-swept west Texas hill was swanky? Poor man didn’t get out much. “Why don’t you have a seat? Dinner’s almost ready.”
He stood in the doorway, looking uneasy. “I wouldn’t feel right sitting down before you.”
“Don’t be silly, get off those feet. Doctor’s orders.”
Reluctantly, he pulled out a chair and levered himself into it. He bumped his left foot against the table leg and winced.
“If you’re hurting, I’ve got pain reliever.”
“I’ve known worse.”
Odd. Stoicism was another quality she’d never associated with Joe. He’d probably caused more pain than he’d ever experienced. She thought of the people he’d hurt most of all. “You can use the phone to call Brandy if you want. Maybe you should let your family know where you are?”
A look of panic flashed in his eyes before he shuttered them from her scrutiny. “No. I don’t think so.”
Oh. Sore spot. Mentioning the ex-wife wasn’t the way to go. “Whatever you think is best.” The couple had been divorced over a year, but Mallory’s mother stayed current on town gossip despite her recent retirement from the diner, and said the marriage had ended long before that. Brandy had told Mallory at Chloe’s last clinic appointment that she was trying to make a new start by getting into paralegal school.
Mallory drained the pasta and poured a jar of sauce over it. After placing it on a slow burner to warm, she removed the Italian bread from the oven. Joe followed her movements as though trying to memorize them. Why? Unless his memory loss was more serious than Mac suspected, he surely knew how to make spaghetti the easy way. Long a master of deception, Joe might have faked his way through the tests, fooling the doctor into thinking he was doing better than he was.
Conducting a little covert evaluation of her own shouldn’t be too difficult. After all, he wasn’t going anywhere for the next few days.
She served the food and was flabbergasted when Joe bowed his head over his plate. Manners and religion? No way. Things were getting downright spooky around here. First thing tomorrow morning she was checking Dink Potter’s alfalfa field for crop circles. She followed his example, echoing his heartfelt “amen” at the end of the silent thanksgiving.
“Looks good,” he said enthusiastically as he picked up his fork. “What’s it called?”
“Spaghetti.” Another word-finding lapse. Maybe the nurses were right to be concerned. They spent more time with patients than doctors, and their astute observations were usually dead-on. “You seem different to me, Joe.” She took a sip of ice tea.
